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Dead End
A dead end is a moment when the player has encountered a point in the game in which the game cannot be beaten due to a previous action or due to copy protection. Background Sierra is infamous for dead ends in its games, often unfair (with exception of copy protection, as Sierra did not need to be 'fair' to piracy) in that most of them go unnoticed until later in the game and sometimes are never noticed, leaving the player confused as to why he cannot progress (or its rather obvious because there is no way to proceed against a barrier that will kill you if you do try to move forward, but no way to get past said barrier). Note: 'fairness' is subjective. Sierra was very clear of what people would be getting into in their games in the documentation, hintbooks, etc., and warned about how to play to avoid being stuck "save early, save often, save in multiple files'), and for many reviews back the day actually praised them for being 'challenging', and criticized SIerra when later games 'dumbed' things down, and making things 'too easy'. Police Quest is a procedural police simulator series. Simply not following policy (as described in the handbooks usually) will lead to both deaths and dead ends. In most cases the dead end leads to a death. There are few 'walking death' moments (as in being able to continue playing for hours, but no way to progress the story), as the game is largely linear, and gated with many opportunities to die, when trying to progress forward. Most of these deaths do tell the player what they did wrong, allowing them to be able to look up the correct procedure from the manual. Short of bugs most dead-ends in Police Quest are related to actual police procedure, that must be followed to the letter. Evidence must all be collected before an arrest warrant can be issued, or before a case can proceed for example. Don't have enough evidence, the person may be able to get off scot free... Incidents in Police Quest Police quest is a highly procedural game series and often comes with actual police codes and code violations in the handbook/manual that comes with each game, that are needed issues commands on the radio, or for other purposes. This can be seen as a form of either tie-in physical game play feature, or copy protection much in the same way that Spell Book was needed to beat King's Quest 3. However, some hintbooks may list these codes. Police Quest I VGA * If you do not have the manual you cannot book the drunk driver, as the related code violations are needed to be recorded. This is both a copy protection measure, and to add realism to the game, as it is a procedural simulator. * If you do not place your gun in the locker before entering the jail the drunk driver will knock you out after you remove his handcuffs. The game will not let you leave the station while the drunk is ready to have his cuffs removed. This is due to realism. In real life once a suspect is buzzed in through the door they cannot be let out until the person has been booked. The security doors is to prevent escapes. This is also easily prevented by making sure to have saves before you enter a new area, and never saving over your save. Police Quest 3 *Due to a bug its possible to get stuck towards the end of Police Quest 3, where you can't enter the court house needed to get a search warrant needed to enter the last portion of the game.https://www.gog.com/forum/police_quest_series/police_quest_3_cant_access_court_day_6_spoilers This essentially creates a 'walking dead' scenario where you can drive around and go to most places, but you can't proceed forward, and there is no way to 'die', short of intentionally doing something to kill yourself, such as crashing the car, or mishandling firearms, etc. References